Emnet Samsara Media re-launches bus screens as BEST TV

The OOH media company has created a mascot and tagline for these re-jigged screens being rebranded and launched as a channel network

Emnet Samsara Media, the digital OOH (out of home) advertising and media company which focuses on the public transportation sector, is revamping its digital screens in BEST buses in Mumbai, giving a facelift and a new name to the offering.

The company started off with and mainly deals in CCTV and surveillance cameras in BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking) buses, but also later launched its own digital TV screens in these buses. It now aims to make these screens India's biggest transit TV network, and starting today, these screens will be known as 'BEST TV'.

& #BANNER1 & #The company has launched a mascot for the channel, which is a yellow animated TV set with hands and legs, called 'Mumbaikar'. The tagline for BEST TV is 'Ab aapke bus mein', which is a play on words meaning 'now in your bus' (bus in Hindi means capacity or reach, the tagline therefore meaning 'now in your reach'). The mascot, creatives and tagline have been created for Emnet by Mumbai based creative agency POPS.

The new and revamped content on the screens will include chartbuster songs, advertisements, advertiser funded programmes, infomercials and film reviews. These clips will be called Mumbai Beats. The company has tied up with Celebrities Management, which is a part of Media Worldwide, the company that runs music channels such as Music India and Sangeet Bangla, for chartbuster songs to be run on these screens.

Trying something new, the company will also run clips of how BEST manages its fleet, the logistics that go behind operating 4,000 buses and also IDs of bus drivers and conductors, who will introduce themselves and share safety measures with passengers.

Discussing the revamp and launch of sub-brand BEST TV, Suyash Chaini, managing director, Emnet Samsara Media, says, "The decision to launch BEST TV came from the idea of creating an identity to relate to passengers. We've identified a new space and programming pattern where quick, short and snappy messages have to be given out."

He explains that even though the average travel time for a passenger on these buses is 30 minutes, a lot of times these are feeder routes and therefore shorter trips for many passengers. Feeder routes are where passengers use the bus to get to railway stations.

In Mumbai, to go from north to south, people take the railways, while to go from east to west, they take the buses. However, 70 per cent people going to railway stations use the buses. Therefore, the longest content piece will run for a maximum of five minutes, keeping in mind the travelling time of the passengers.

Emnet's screens are currently present in 1,335 of the total 4,000 buses, reaching out to approximately 1,500 passengers per bus per day.

With this re-launched brand, Emnet will now offer advertisers each bus depot as a market. In all, there are 25 bus depots in Mumbai. Unlike earlier, when advertisers could pick any number of buses at will from specific depots, now an advertiser will have to take all the buses from a particular depot as a package.

Emnet is also offering advertisers a 'Re 1 deal', where a 10 second ad will cost only Re 1 per slot per bus. The loops run a maximum of eight times a day, thus the same ad can be seen these many times.

Kanishka Chaudhury, GM, sales, Emnet Samsara Media, says, "Earlier, too, advertisers thought of this as a good medium, but content wise we didn't have much to offer. However, now we do."

Emnet is also promoting BEST TV on air on Big FM, with three radio ads running for 10, 20 and 30 seconds each. The ads talk about people travelling with celebrities in the form of hit songs and thus entice people to travel by BEST buses.

Some of the big brands already advertising on these screens include Dabur, Coca-Cola, Kurkure, Wrigley's, Glaxo, Alkem's Jeevanprash, TV channels such as Zee and Colors, while Airtel, Reliance GSM and others are finalising deals to come onboard soon.